standing, a courteous smile shedding its light over his aged countenance, and his snowy hair descending almost to his shoulders, occasioned a respectful silence amongst the guests, while he addressed them in the following words:

"In the first place, gentlemen, I have to return you all thanks for giving me the pleasure of your company here to-day, which I do with all my heart. And I feel the more honoured and gratified because I take it for granted you have come here, not so much from any personal feeling towards myself, but because you know that I have always endeavoured, so far as my poor means would enable me, to show my respect for men of parts and learning. Well, then, here you are all met, grammarians, geometricians, arithmeticians, geographers, astronomers, philosophers, Latinists, Grecians, and men of more sciences than perhaps I ever heard the names of. Now there's no doubt learning is a fine thing, but what good is all the learning in the world, without what they call mother-wit to make use of it? An ounce o' mother-wit would buy an' sell a stoneweight of learning at any fair in Munsther. Now there are you all scholars, an' here am I a poor country farmer that hardly ever got more teaching than to read and write, and maybe a course of Voster, and yet I'll be bound I'll lay down a problem that maybe some of ye wouldn't find it easy to make out".

At this preamble, the curiosity of the company was raised to the highest degree, and the Knight of the Sheep resumed after a brief pause.

"At a farm of mine, about a dozen miles from this, I have four fields of precisely the same soil; one square, another oblong, another partly round, and another triangular. Now, what is the reason that, while I have an excellent crop of white eyes this year out of the square, the oblong, and the round field, not a single stalk would grow in the triangular one?"

This problem produced a dead silence amongst the guests, and all exerted their understandings to discover the solution, but without avail, although many of their conjectures showed the deepest ingenuity. Some traced out a mysterious connection between the triangular boundary, and the lines of the celestial hemisphere; others said, probably from the shape of the field an equal portion of nutrition did not flow on all sides to the seed so as to favour its growth. Others attributed the failure to the effect of the angular hedges upon the atmosphere, which, collecting the wind, as it were, into corners, caused such an obstruction to the warmth necessary to vegetation, that the seed perished in the carth. But all their theories were beside the mark.

"Gentlemen", said Mr. Taafe, "ye're all too clever that's the only fault I have to find with ye'r answers. Shamus", he continued, addressing his eldest son, "can you tell the raison ?"

"Why, then, father", said Shamus, "they didn't grow there, I suppose, because you didn't plant them there".

"You have it, Shamus", said the knight; "I declare you took the ball from all the philosophers. Well, gentlemen, can any o' ye tell me, now, if you wished to travel all over the world, from whom would you ask a passport?”

This question seemed as puzzling as the former. Some said the Great Mogul, others the Grand Signior, others the Pope, others the Lord Lieutenant, and some the Emperor of Austria; but all were wrong.

"What do you say, Guillaum ?" asked the knight, addressing his second son.

"From Civility, father", answered Guillaum; for that's a gentleman that has acquaintances everywhere".

"You're right, Guillaum", replied the knight. "Well, I have one more question for the company. Can any one

tell me in what country the women are the best housekeepers ?"

Again the company exhausted all their efforts in conjecture, and the geographers showed their learning by naming all the countries in the world one after another, but to no purpose. The knight now turned with a fond

look towards his youngest son.

"Garret", said he, "can you tell where the women are good housekeepers ?"

Garret rubbed his forehead for a while, and smiled, and shook his head, but could get nothing out of it.

"I declare to my heart, father", said he, "I can't tell from Adam. Where the women are good housekeepers? -Stay a minute. Maybe", said he, with a knowing wink, maybe 'tis in America ?"

"Shamus, do you answer", said the knight, in a disappointed tone.

"In the grave, father", answered Shamus; "for there they never gad abroad".

Mr. Taafe acknowledged that his eldest son had once more judged right; and the entertainments of the night proceeded without further interruption, until, wearied with feasting and music, such of the company as could not be accomodated with beds, took their departure, each in the direction of his own homes.

CHAPTER II.

ON the following morning, in the presence of his household, Mr. Taafe made a present to his two eldest sons of one hundred pounds each, and was induced to bestow the same sum on Garret, although he by no means thought he deserved it after disgracing him as he had done before his guests. He signified to the young men at the same time,

that he gave them the money as a free gift, to lay out in any way they pleased, and that he never should ask them to repay it.

After breakfast, the old knight, as usual, went to take a few turns in the garden.

“Well, Jerry”, said he, when the steward had joined him according to his orders; "well, Jerry, Garret is no genius".

A groan from Jerry seemed to announce his acquiescence in this decision. He did not, however, resign all hope.

"With submission to your honour", said he, "I wouldn't call that a fair thrial of a man's parts. A man mightn't be able to answer a little cran o' that kind, an' to have more sense for all than those that would. Wait a while until you'll see what use he'll make o' the hundred pounds, an' that'll show his sinse betther than all the riddles in Europe".

Mr. Taafe acknowledged that Jerry's proposition was but reasonable; and, accordingly, at the end of a twelvemonth, he called his three sons before him, and examined them one after another.

"Well, Shamus", said he, 66

your hundred pounds?"

what did you do with

"I bought stock with it, father"

"Very good. And you, Guillaum ?”

"I laid it out, father, in the intherest of a little farm westwards".

"Very well managed again. Well, Garret, let us hear you did with the hundred pounds ".

what

“I spent it, father", said Garret.

"Spent it! Is it the whole hundred pounds?"

"Sure, I thought you told us we might lay it out as we liked, sir ?"

"Is that the raison you should be such a prodigal as to waste the whole of it in a year? Well, hear to me, now,

the three o' ye, and listen to the raison why I put ye to these trials. I'm an old man, my children; my hair is white on my head, an' it's time for me to think of turning the few days that are left me to the best account. I wish to separate myself from the world before the world separates itself from me. For this cause I had resolved, these six months back, to give up all my property to ye three that are young an' hearty, an' to keep nothing for myself but a bed under my old roof, an' a sate at the table and by the fire-place, an' so to end my ould days in peace an' quiet. To you, Shamus, I meant to give the dairy-farm up in the mountains; the Corcasses and all the meadowing to you, Guillaum; and for you, Garret, I had the best of the whole, that is, the house we're living in, and the farm belonging to it. But for what would I give it to you, after what you just tould me? Is it to make ducks and drakes of it, as you did o' the hundred pounds? Here, Garret", said he, going to a corner of the room and bringing out a small bag and a long hazel stick; "here's the legacy I have to leave you that, an' the king's high road, an' my liberty to go wherever it best plases you. Hard enough I airned that hundhred pounds that you spent so aisily. And as for the farm I meant to give you, I give it to these two boys, an' my blessing along with it, since 'tis they that know how to take care of it".

At this speech the two elder sons cast themselves at their father's feet with tears of gratitude.

"Yes", said he, " my dear boys, I'm rewarded for all the pains I ever took with ye, to make ye industrious, and thrifty, and everything that way. I'm satisfied, under Heaven, that all will go right with ye; but as for this boy, I have nothing to say to him. Betther for me I never saw his face".

Poor Garret turned aside his head, but he made no attempt to excuse himself, nor to obtain any favour from his rigid father. After wishing them all a timid farewell,